KiwiNZ: The coverage is disgraceful but this level of discrimination is common in New Zealand

I doubt the explanation is just discrimination - they have no interest or motivation to do that. Logically, they would decide programming based on cost and what they think that their subscribers want to see. I suspect that they just made a call that there was insufficient viewer interest to justify the cost, and/or that they would have to screen it instead of something that was of interest to a higher proportion of their subscribers.

Their business model is based on getting people to pay by screening programs they want to see, not what other people think that they morally ought to want to see. I'm not a sports fanatic (watched very little of even the main Olympics) but, based on "water cooler" conversations involving the people at work who are big sports fans, the level of interest in the Olympics was huge whereas interest in the Paralympics is essentially non-existent.

Note: I'm not making a judgement on whether this is right or wrong, it's just my observation of what the situation is.

old3eyes: Most people in NZ don't care about it. I don't.. It just seems another huge cost to the summer Olympic organizers to put on..

If no one care about it then how come they had Olympic Games on all 8 channels and on facebook poeple talking about it https://www.facebook.com/SKYnewzealand and sky made a statement http://www.skysport.co.nz/article/general/headlines/statement-from-sky-television-on-paralympics-coverage-62455/

old3eyes: Most people in NZ don't care about it. I don't.. It just seems another huge cost to the summer Olympic organizers to put on..

The Paralympics is a completely separate organisation and has nothing to do with the Olympics apart from the fact that there are cost savings to the IOC because the venues get used a second time two weeks after the Olympics.

KiwiNZ: The coverage is disgraceful but this level of discrimination is common in New Zealand

Televison is run by ratings/money, if there was enough interest it would be on a live and with multiple channels.

How do you know there is not enough interest? Sky doesn't know. NZ has NEVER provided free-to-air full coverage of the Paralympics. Most New Zealanders don't even know what the Paralympics is, I'd guess, and without coverage they will never know what they are missing.

Stuff only covers, briefly, the gold medals. Our silver & bronze medalists are lucky to get a mention further down on the same page. TV doesn't do a lot better.

Sky never bothered to respond to petitions or letters about the coverage (pay channel, highlights only) yet, interestingly, in correspondence I had with the UK's C4 channel, they had hundreds of requests from New Zealand for them to open their coverage up. They tried but couldn't.

I see the lack of coverage as discrimination and the lack of interest as ignorance. I'm not blaming people for being ignorant as its hard for the general public to know about the sports and our athletes if they are never mentioned.

4 gold, 2 silver, 4 bronze so far. Our team has broken a lot of world, Paralympic, and Oceania records. They train as hard as our Olympians and do it harder because for most of them their competitions are self-funded. They are out there competing hard and bringing NZ onto the world stage with very little support from Kiwis. In a sports-mad country this is shameful.

I am much more interested in the Paralympics than the normal Olympics. Maybe because I'm an engineer and interested to see how people overcome problems.

Surely it must be much easier to argue discrimination against Paralympics than to argue discrimination against civil unions? Not saying civil unions are not discriminated against, just saying they have recently been given something to get recognised where as the Paralympics simply do not feature ever. The Paralympic athletes who overcame significant difficulties are forgotten.

The only thing that disabled people are given is more (maybe too much) reserved parking space which annoys abled people when all the other parks are full. And buying a car like a Toyota Porte which is factory optioned for wheelchairs (and normal chairs) cost 2 to 3 times the price of a normal one.

In South Africa, the symbol of discrimination (still, but reversed), the Paralympics receive more coverage than in NZ.

I don't think it has to be live coverage, but reasonable/significant coverage of the day. Or perhaps we need to cut back on the Olympics?

Niel: I am much more interested in the Paralympics than the normal Olympics. Maybe because I'm an engineer and interested to see how people overcome problems.

Surely it must be much easier to argue discrimination against Paralympics than to argue discrimination against civil unions? Not saying civil unions are not discriminated against, just saying they have recently been given something to get recognised where as the Paralympics simply do not feature ever. The Paralympic athletes who overcame significant difficulties are forgotten.

The only thing that disabled people are given is more (maybe too much) reserved parking space which annoys abled people when all the other parks are full. And buying a car like a Toyota Porte which is factory optioned for wheelchairs (and normal chairs) cost 2 to 3 times the price of a normal one.

In South Africa, the symbol of discrimination (still, but reversed), the Paralympics receive more coverage than in NZ.

I don't think it has to be live coverage, but reasonable/significant coverage of the day. Or perhaps we need to cut back on the Olympics?

I have been abused because of reserved disabled parking even when I am transferring from my car into a wheelchair. I have been asked to move by a parking warden because the warden did not believe a disabled person would own a new vehicle. I was displaying my permit but he did not believe it was mine even though my chair is clearly visable

Niel: The only thing that disabled people are given is more (maybe too much) reserved parking space which annoys abled people when all the other parks are full.

The number of accessible car parks varies depending on local government by-laws for the area but, depending on which NZ Standards they follow, means there is 4 or 5 carparks provided for every 200 other carparking spaces.

NZS 4121 gives the following figures:Total number of car parks Number of accessible spaces 1 - 20 Not less than 1 21 - 50 Not less than 2 For every additional 50 parks Not less than 1

Abuse of these very limited accessible parking spaces is very common in NZ. Just look around shopping car parks on any rainy day. People who don't need the parks will take them anyway, because they either don't want to walk from parks they are entitled to use that are further away, or they see an empty park and try to justify it to themselves by, "I won't be long". This leads to regular confrontations with drivers that have disabilities & also leads to people with disabilities not being able to go to stores, theatre or wherever.

People don't seem to consider that a wheelchair user, for example, cannot use a standard parking space - there isn't enough room. Nor that a person in a chair traversing a parking lot is risking their lives. Drivers don't see sitting people. A person with a mobility impairment that means they cannot walk 200 metres cannot use parking spaces further away even if they are able to use a narrower space.

Supermarket carparks are rarely so full that people need to park on the street. What does fill up are the parks nearest the building. Laziness is the only reason able-bodied people take parks that other people need.

Niel: I don't think it has to be live coverage, but reasonable/significant coverage of the day. Or perhaps we need to cut back on the Olympics?

Or maybe we don't need to see every losing Warriors game?

For those who want to watch live, you can do it with live-streaming. This requires installing a flash addon and going to smart.paralympic.org. If you can handle installing their stupid streaming app then its a pretty good way to keep up with the games and the scores. Since most of the finals happen in the middle of the night here the alternative is to Paralympic Sport TV. They upload the videos very quickly. http://www.youtube.com/user/ParalympicSportTV

Just to clarify, I did mean that disabled people are not given enough. The one significant thing they are given (reserved parking) often gets used by abled people that see the open space as a waste. I was in no way complaining about too much reserved spaces in general, however there are instances where the blanket legislation is inappropriate like at our local swimming pool where disabled parking is very seldom filled even by abled people. I do walk the distance myself, petrol is too expensive to wait for a space to open near the door. Our church of 120 members was also forced to import and install a $60,000 lift in case someone in a wheelchair wants to go to the offices where visitors are not allowed. Somehow the council did not accept that we will pray for visitors in wheelchairs to walk...

Sometimes the bylaws seem stupid but they aren't when you realise that they apply to the building, not necessarily to the way the building is currently being used.

My brother recently had to install accessible parking and toilet facilities at a workshop he is building. The site is not open to the public but could be in the future under a different owner. So, while it doesn't make sense for my brother to have that expense for facilities he doesn't need and won't use, in the long term it makes sense for the potential future use of the building.

As to the Paralympics, NZ now has 12 medals - 4 of each of gold, silver and bronze. Kiwis are doing well even if most of us at home aren't getting to see it happening.